Author: Dave Farquhar

Countif example: Data analysis with Excel

Dave Farquhar Office
Countif example: Data analysis with Excel

The lowly Countif function is one of the most useful tools for data analysis you’ll find in Excel and other spreadsheets. It’s also not all that well understood, I find. Knowing how to use it sure has made my job much easier since 2013, so I think there’s a chance it will help you too. Here’s a Countif example to show you how to use it.

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Inherent risk definition

Dave Farquhar security
Inherent risk definition

Sometimes you’ll hear insurance professionals, banking professionals, computer security professionals, and other people who deal with risk talk about inherent risk and its counterpart, residual risk. If these are unclear to you, or you just need a refresher, you came to the right place. Let’s take a look at a simple inherent risk definition and example, as well as residual risk.

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How to accept all changes in Word

Dave Farquhar Office, Software ,
How to accept all changes in Word

Every couple of months or so, we have to collaborate at work on a Microsoft Word document and submit it without all the distracting markup in it. And it seems like it always takes four of us half an hour to re-figure out how to accept all changes in Word and remove the comments. This applies to Word 2007 and all newer versions.

Sometimes I also find the tracked changes and other markup causes weird problems, and the fastest way to make them go away is to get rid of the markup.

So I figured it might help someone. This is something that either takes you 30 seconds or 30 minutes. If you don’t do this every day, it’s likely to take too long. This is for those of you who can’t do it in less than 30 minutes.
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How to create a stacked bar chart in Excel

Dave Farquhar Office, Software , ,
How to create a stacked bar chart in Excel

My boss’ management is clamoring for metrics. They want to know, at a glance, what we’re doing and how far along we are. Sounds like a job for stacked bar charts in Excel to me. So here’s how to create a stacked bar chart in Excel.

Figuring out a way to track our progress was fairly easy. Figuring out how to make Excel display that chart in a meaningful fashion… Well, that took about five hours. I’ll try to make it easier for you than it was for me.
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CPU vs core, or core vs processor

Dave Farquhar Hardware ,
CPU vs core, or core vs processor

Here’s a good question I heard the other day: What’s the difference between a CPU and cores, or the difference between the number of CPUs and the number of cores in a system? The CPU vs core or core vs processor distinction, it turns out, is subtle.

As far as the operating system is concerned, there is no difference, but I’ll explain why. For you, there might be a difference.

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Wrist pain from typing

Dave Farquhar Health , ,
Wrist pain from typing

I’ve had a long history with wrist pain from typing, brought on by carpal tunnel syndrome or repetitive stress injury. People sometimes as me to elaborate, so I’ll elaborate on beating carpal tunnel. I was able to beat it without surgery, and you may be able to as well.

It’s something I struggled with off and on for a good 10 years. Mostly off, in recent years, which is good. At one point, it was so bad I wasn’t able to unload my dishwasher, because I couldn’t grip the plates long enough. It was career threatening too. Read more

Cleaning NES games and consoles

Dave Farquhar Retro Gaming , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Cleaning NES games and consoles

Anyone old enough to have played with an original Nintendo NES knows the problem: You plug in the cartridge, turn on the system, and get a blank screen and the power light blinks at you. The schoolyard fix is to take out the cartridge, blow into it, then put it back into the system. Then, with a little luck, you can play your game. The trouble is, that’s just a short-term fix. In the long run, it makes the problem worse and eventually the system can’t play games at all. The solution is to clean them. Here’s a process for cleaning NES games.

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Advantages of Intel processors

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing
Advantages of Intel processors

I’ve talked before about the disadvantages of the Intel 8086. But in spite of its weaknesses, it won. The CPU you are using right now descended from it. Even if you’re reading this on a smartphone, the server that sent the page to your smartphone has an Intel 8086 descendant in it. So what are some advantages of Intel processors? They won for a reason.

In the 1980s, there was a saying that nobody got fired for buying IBM. Intel positioned itself as the logical successor to that, building an ecosystem around its CPUs that allowed it to conduct marketing campaigns as the safe, reliable, compatible choice. It was true enough of the time that Intel built momentum that no other company could match.

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White hat gray hat black hat – what’s the difference?

Dave Farquhar security
White hat gray hat black hat – what’s the difference?

In computer security circles, you’ll hear the words white hat gray hat black hat thrown around a lot. Everyone just assumes you know what they mean. If you’re unsure about it, here’s what the terms mean, and what the difference is.

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Can your computer become infected with a virus via email?

Dave Farquhar security
Can your computer become infected with a virus via email?

Can your computer become infected with a virus via email? It absolutely can. I had one of the worst weeks of my career due to a virus delivered over e-mail. But the good news is, it’s preventable. You can take simple measures to make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to catch a virus via e-mail.

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